The world is like a prison, my body is holy

Chapter 143 Discussing Both Heart and Actions (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
In the still of the night, the north wind howled.

The quiet Taipingqiao Wharf was suddenly filled with the sound of rushing water.

Wearing only a thin linen outfit, Wang Wen walked step by step out of the icy river water, with each step the river water seemed to wash away from him like quicksand.

When he stepped onto the stone steps, there wasn't a trace of water on him anymore, and even his hair, which had been disheveled by the river, had returned to its neat and tidy state.

He stretched his stiff neck, and a gentle warmth slowly rose from his body, like a sauna coaxing heat to soothe his stiff form.

"It still doesn't work..."

He murmured in disappointment.

He walked into the icy river in the dead of winter to learn the basics of the "Nine Tribulations Return to Origin Body".

The first level of the Nine Tribulations Returning to Origin Body is the power of a raging torrent. Its incantation is: 'Stepping on the vast ocean, the acupoints open; the raging waves wash over the mortal body; let the ten thousand feet of raging waves surge, I gather a hundred rivers from my dantian; the essence of water transforms into qi, opening the three jiaos; the meridians are like dragons churning the four seas; when the tide recedes and the clouds disperse, the calamity will naturally arise from the azure waves…'

Wang Wen had studied this profound skill for a long time and had long suspected that its essence lay not in the "metal, wood, water, fire, and earth" but in the "calamity".

In short, the prerequisite for cultivating the first level of the power of torrents is not physical water or rivers, but the calamity power of a flood.

In martial arts terms, it means calamity or disaster for rivers and lakes.

In the terminology of Xuanmen (the school of Taoism), this means that the Ren water element is out of control.

Instead of actual water.

This may explain why this body-refining technique is called "Nine Tribulations Returning to Origin Body" instead of "Great Compassion Ode of Heaven, Earth, Yin and Yang and the Five Elements".

But in the dead of winter, rivers and streams everywhere are in the dry season, and the next flood season is next summer. Where can he find floods?

So, taking a chance, he jumped into the canal in the dead of night, using his magic to block the upstream water, attempting to artificially create a small-scale "flood peak" and cleverly cultivate the power of a torrent.

He didn't ask for much; as long as he could master this profound skill, the various troublesome calamities that followed could be left to the Mountain God's Decree to deal with.

The result, naturally, was that there was no result...

Today marks the seventh night he has spent bathing in the canal in the middle of the night.

He has a bit of OCD. He has such a cool and awesome skill in his hands, but he can't register it into the Mountain God Token to see its power. What's the difference between this and going through all the trouble to win over Liu Yifei, but only being able to have a Platonic spiritual love affair with the goddess?
But the goddess absolutely refused, so he could only suppress his restless heart and trembling hands...

'Oh well, good things come to those who wait!'

He lightly rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on, and thought to himself, 'I should put this mystical skill aside for now and focus on leveling up the Lightning Thunder Fist!'

If you can't get your hands on some fine vintage wine, then have a cup of green tea to quench your thirst!

Thinking of this, he habitually summoned the Mountain God's Decree and glanced at it.

[The God of Huangshan (Manifesting Holy Righteousness, Courage, Martial Might, and Spiritual Power)]

[Achievements: 895221]

[Yin De: 2408]

Merit: 5980

[Yin Shen: Daytime Wanderer]

【Shrine: Huangshan Temple】

[Hundred Schools: Taiyi Salvation and Protection Scripture (Fourth Heaven) (+), Boundless Ocean Divine Skill (Eighth Heaven) (+), Lightning Thunder Fist (Third Heaven) (+), Palm Thunder (Perfect), Six Harmonies Spear (Divine Mastery)...]

This glance, however, made him suddenly exclaim "Huh?" and think to himself, "How come my Yin Virtue has increased by 58 points?"

He would summon the Mountain God's Decree and look at it several times almost every day. He clearly remembered that when he checked the Mountain God's Decree at noon, the Yin Virtue column was still 2350 points.

His accumulated merit was completely depleted when he provided support to Master Hunkun and his group from Guangming Peak.

That 2350 points was all thanks to that big crocodile from Chaohu Lake who generously sponsored him because he was short of money.

These past few days, he's been busy arranging personnel matters at the General's Mansion during the day and studying how to master the "Nine Tribulations Return to Origin Technique" at night; he hasn't gone out for any part-time work at all...

So, there's only one truth: Chen Feng and his group have finally started to earn good karma for him!
Although he couldn't immediately tell whether this income came from the merits and virtues of Chen Feng and his group in slaying demons and monsters, or from the merits and virtues of Chen Feng and his group in governing the Huangshan Divine Palace according to his plan.

Regardless of the reason, he was very happy, feeling a sense of great comfort that his son had finally learned to go out and earn money to supplement the family income.

'After subsidizing you bunch of losers for so long, I'm finally seeing a return on my investment!'

He thought to himself with a smug smile, feeling that the bright future of big capital and big landowners was already beckoning to him.

Just then, a faint yet extremely noisy voice suddenly rang out in his spirit: "Master Wu, Master Wu, are you there? Could you please ask my master for me if he received the batch of harmful spirits I sent him the other day? Is he satisfied?"

Upon hearing this noisy voice, a crooked "well" character quickly appeared on Wang Wen's forehead.

He muttered angrily under his breath, "Damn it, that talkative snake, I'll get him mute sooner or later!"

That lunatic is very clever... extremely clever.

That day on the second floor of the tavern, he only made a single remark, and that lunatic immediately understood the implication. After returning to Hongze Lake, he not only sent over his subordinate, the big catfish, to give him a boost of merit points.

Under the guise of avenging the giant crocodile in Chaohu Lake, they amassed a large number of mountain spirits and wild monsters from the Jianghuai region, sending wave after wave of wicked demons to him...

These days, he has accumulated over 100,000 merit points from these mountain spirits and monsters without leaving his house, which is incredibly enjoyable!

Yeah, that lunatic is just too damn talkative!

When that fellow returned to Hongze Lake and offered incense to his consecrated statue for the first time, he, with the intention of showing off and being well-rounded, followed the power of that incense offering and instantly traveled hundreds of miles to the water palace of Hongze Lake, where he put on airs and scolded that lunatic a few times.

From then on, that madman went crazy, offering incense to him eighty times a day and bringing up every trivial matter to the statue.

Wang Wen wanted to unilaterally sever that last thread of incense offerings, but he was also afraid of missing out on the other man's logistics information.

It wouldn't be right to go and scold that guy specifically for this... (What god would complain about a believer being too talkative?)
So all he could do every day was listen to that guy's endless chatter from the other side of Hongze Lake, telling him how many disobedient naval officers he had punished that day, and what good deeds he had done...

More importantly, that guy doesn't care about the time when he burns incense. Several times, he was half asleep when that guy would excitedly babble on and on, making him almost respond in his drowsy state and expose his true identity!

"Damn it, you're a snake, don't you even hibernate?"

While roaring with rage in his heart, Wang Wen leaped into the air and flew out of the city, unleashing a thick and long bolt of crimson lightning.

"Wow!"

A dazzling golden bolt of lightning ripped through the dark night sky, fell into the calm canal, and exploded into a spray of water more than three meters high.

In an instant, countless windows in the silent city of Yangzhou suddenly opened, and one after another, disheveled figures wrapped in thick clothes appeared in the windows, gazing at the flickering golden light outside the city.

"Honey, come quick! General Wang is at it again!"

"Hey Lao Zhang, you're still awake!"

"Yeah, Lao Wang, you're not asleep either?"

"That's right, I can't sleep soundly if General Wang doesn't do that every night!" "Who doesn't?"

"Don't compare yourself to us, you have to get up early tomorrow to sell steamed buns..."

On the other side, Wang Wen waved his hand and unleashed seven or eight bolts of crimson lightning before stopping, looking down at the churning river with some surprise.

Under his gaze, in the center of the surging river, one after another, fish longer than a person and toads bigger than a washbasin floated to the surface, each with its snow-white belly turned up and its body stiff.

Beneath the churning river, a dozen or so small monsters, such as giant crabs and eel spirits, were lurking...

Unconvinced, he unleashed his divine sense, scanning everything within a ten-mile radius like a radar several times. After confirming that he hadn't missed a single trace of demonic energy, he muttered in disappointment, "This batch isn't very pure!"

The first few batches of goods, at least, could withstand twenty or thirty of his thunderbolts before they all went to bed.

This time, only seven or eight thunderbolts from the Crimson Palace were heard before the lights went out?

Ao Qing, that bastard, cleaned up Hongze Lake so quickly?
After a moment's thought, Wang Wen decided to put more pressure on Ao Qing.

These monsters are like water in a sponge...

If you squeeze, there's always some left!
With this thought in mind, Wang Wen used a soul-summoning technique to pull out the essences from the corpses of the little demons and monsters in the river and gather them into a ball.

Then he casually tossed a lump of crimson thunder over, turned around and left without even glancing at it.

"Thorn."

The dazzling golden light, like a brilliant firework, illuminated his tall and heroic figure.

In response, a line of small golden characters appeared in his field of vision.

[Merit +6540]

"Tsk..."

He thought to himself, utterly bored, "It's like a mosquito's leg—better than nothing, I suppose!"

Sometimes, even he himself felt conflicted.

I wonder if we should hope for more monsters that produce good karma.

Perhaps we should hope that there are fewer monsters that produce good karma...

There is currently only one way for demons to generate merit: to steal the authority of earth deities and spirits.

Without such actions, living monsters are worthless to Wang Wen.

Dead monsters are worth a few coins, though.

'otherwise……'

He secretly muttered to himself, 'Should I have Ao Qing lure those mixed demons first, then trick them into coming and killing them?'

With these ulterior motives in mind, he furtively glanced at the dark sky.

Whether by coincidence or some unseen premonition, the moment he looked up, he was met with the blinking North Star...

He suddenly shivered, shaking his head repeatedly and harshly criticizing himself: "Ugh, how could you have such despicable, shameless, vulgar, and filthy thoughts?"

He was somewhat disappointed with his good idea, but not particularly disappointed.

As the saying goes: Of all virtues, filial piety is the most important; judge by intention, not by deeds, for if you judge by deeds, poor families have no filial piety. Of all vices, lust is the worst; judge by deeds, not by intention, for if you judge by intention, no one in history is perfect.

However, both unseen virtue and merit are judged by both intention and deeds.

In short, to accumulate virtue, one must have both a kind heart and good deeds.

All good deeds done in the name of accumulating merit ultimately amount to nothing...

The idea of ​​harboring bandits to enhance one's own power is something that even the monarchs and ministers of secular dynasties cannot fool, let alone the supreme ruler of Heaven.

"Ergou, Ergou..."

As soon as Wang Wen returned to the Qinghe Gang's headquarters, he started shouting and yelling.

Xu Wu had indeed not gone to sleep. As soon as he spoke, Xu Wu, dressed neatly and carrying a waist knife, appeared in front of him: "Brother, the brothers have already gone there. Shall we go to the usual place?"

Wang Wen: "Same old spot, fourteen are floating on the surface, and fifteen are lying underwater... Clean them up."

Xu Wu nodded and pointed to his bedroom: "There's a pot of chicken stuffed in the belly in the room. I just brought it over, it's still warm. Eat a few more bites before you go to sleep."

Wang Wen laughed and said, "I know. Just be quick-witted. Give me a signal if anything happens, and I'll be there whenever you call."

Xu Wu laughed and said, "You've taken care of everything, what else could we possibly need? You can rest easy!"

The two went their separate ways. Wang Wen went back inside to eat stuffed chicken, while Xu Wu led his men down to the river to retrieve the demon's corpse.

……

"Clap."

Wang Wen tossed the last, clean chicken bone onto the table, let out a satisfied burp, and grabbed a handkerchief to wipe his lips haphazardly.

The next second, a tiny golden figure, no bigger than a palm, emerged from the Baihui acupoint on the top of his head and vanished into the dark night.

In the blink of an eye, three hundred miles away in the Hongze Lake Water Palace, Ao Qing, who was still kneeling and chattering incessantly before the statue of Wang Wen, was pleasantly surprised to find that the eyes of the statue before him lit up...

It immediately kowtowed to the ground: "This little demon Ao Qing greets Master Wu. May Master Wu be blessed with ten thousand years of happiness and peace!"

"Little Qingzi..."

The next second, the wooden statue suddenly came to life, plopped down on the shrine, crossed its legs leisurely, and a cigarette-like object appeared at the corner of its mouth.

Ao Qing crawled forward on his knees, bowing respectfully as if listening attentively: "Yes, little demon is here."

The statue said casually, "Your master asked me to tell you that the little bit of goods you delivered today won't help you improve!"

Ao Qing was confused for only a second before he understood everything. He bowed respectfully and said, "This humble demon knows his mistake. Please ask Master Wu to inform my master that I will find a batch of top-quality goods tomorrow and send them to him. I guarantee he will be satisfied."

The statue glanced at him and suddenly laughed: "You're so eager to improve?"

Ao Qing said sincerely, "Master Wu, this little demon wants to improve, so much so!"

The statue chuckled as it rose: "Little fellow, you're quite ambitious, not bad... I'll reluctantly put in a good word for you with your master."

The statue swung its small wooden spear and tapped Ao Qing on the head three times: "Good deeds and virtues are judged by both actions and intentions. Less talk and more action. Heaven is watching what you are doing..."

As soon as the words were spoken, the statue's eyes lost their divine light and returned to their usual imposing appearance—holding a long spear upside down, frowning, and staring straight ahead.

(End of this chapter)